


He That Pricketh the Heart

by Blackbird Song (Blackbird_Song)



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Movie Reference, Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-23
Updated: 2011-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-22 23:25:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackbird_Song/pseuds/Blackbird%20Song
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After V'ger evolves and goes away, Kirk sits Spock down for a talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He That Pricketh the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a beautiful picture by Caren Parnes, to be found on fanlore here: <http://fanlore.org/w/images/d/d6/Older_K%26S_pencil_small.jpg>, this was written for the con zine for KiSMet 2011. Many thanks to my husband for the beta, and to all at KiSMet who voted it 'Best Story'.

"Spock, we need to talk." Kirk didn't have to grab Spock by the arm and pull him along the corridor to – where were they going to do this?

Kirk marched towards the briefing room, knowing that Spock was following hard by.

The briefing room was occupied.

Without breaking stride, Kirk veered off for the rec room – far fancier and less intimate than the old one had been.

It, too, was occupied, but the room was bigger, and Kirk could clear an area he wanted with an iron gaze and two purposeful strides. It would feel good to watch crewmen scatter, but there was no justification for ousting the only five people in the hangar-deck sized room from the corner they'd taken. He gestured at a seat – all corners and sharp edges, however soft it was supposed to be.

Spock eased himself around the table and sat on the far corner of a couch.

Kirk glanced at his hand, then diagonally across at Spock and back again.

"I require back support."

Kirk's eyes widened, despite his wishes to the contrary. And then he noticed that Spock's jacket was undone and flapping, and that his face was paler than usual. He sighed and sat down on the couch at right angles, occupying the end closest to Spock. "You okay?"

"I am ... recovering."

Kirk nodded, but the words left his mouth, anyway. "What the hell did you think you were doing, going out there?"

Both Spock's brows rose. "Following your orders, Admiral."

"Not this time! The other time. The one where you ended up in Sickbay."

"Ah. I thought I'd explained that."

"Not exactly. You gave us necessary information, which is why you're not in the brig."

"I see."

Spock's ability to express his innermost feelings without moving a muscle had always amazed Kirk, but he blew right by it this time. "No, you don't. Now answer my question, Commander. Why did you leave the ship without permission?"

"As I believe I explained, Admiral, V'ger was calling to me."

"Were you in control of your faculties?"

"Affirmative."

"Then that is insufficient reason for putting yourself and the ship at risk."

"I understand." Spock rose, about three degrees to starboard of vertical. "Admiral Kirk, I respectfully submit myself for disciplinary action."

Kirk covered the sinking feeling inside by waving Spock back to the seat. "Not yet, Mr. Spock. Just tell me why you did it."

Spock sat – sank – back down on his couch. "Because I needed to know." His voice was suddenly hollow, higher-pitched. It was the voice he'd always used when most desperate.

Kirk didn't let himself be broken by it, but only just. "Needed to know what?"

"Why I failed the Kolinahr."

"Failed... I thought you broke the discipline to come here."

"No. I failed it."

Kirk did break inside a little, then. He swallowed. "What did you find out?"

Spock shook his head, eyes cast down through the floor.

"Look, Spock.... I really don't want to pry, but I need to know—"

"V'ger had no answers." Spock's voice was haunted, far from the rich warmth that it had exuded in Sickbay and on the Bridge, when he had wept.

That memory made Kirk's face tense. He moved, wishing he could go for a run or hug his friend. Or maybe deck the guy. And then he leaned forward. "Spock," he said, very quietly, "if you can't or won't tell me what's going on with you, I'm going to have to put you off the ship and recommend that your commission be suspended pending a full psychological examination and possible competency hearing."

"I am aware of those possibilities, Admiral."

"And...?"

"Effective immediately, I submit my resignation." Spock's hand moved like lightning to the touch screen in front of him.

Kirk caught it, and knew that Spock was in more difficulty than he'd thought when he managed to maintain his grip on it with ease.

Spock shivered as their skin touched. "Jim...."

Kirk didn't know if he could bear it. "Tell me."

"Master T'Sai found you at my center. I tried to expurgate, to shield when I couldn't. For a while, it seemed to work. I thought I had succeeded...."

Kirk had to release Spock's hand, then. "But you didn't...." It was a whisper, spoken through the floor as his eyes bored through space-time.

"You are t'hy'la to me. I could not."

The last thing Kirk could do at that moment was the thing he most wanted to do. He clasped his hands together to prevent them from straying. "Were you trying to kill yourself when you left the ship?" He could not be sure whether he was talking about the present or two years ago.

"I ... did not believe so at the time." Apparently, Spock shared Kirk's temporal confusion.

Kirk sighed himself back to the present. "That's not very reassuring, Spock. I require more information."

Spock's right eyebrow rose.

"Oh...," Kirk rubbed his face, biting back the curse. "I'm beginning to sound like V'ger."

"It has been a trying day, Admiral."

"And you haven't helped!"

"I—"

"Belay that. My apologies, Mr. Spock. Without you, we couldn't have saved Earth or helped V'ger to ... go wherever it did."

"That is correct."

Kirk laughed. And then he sobered. "Look, Spock, I still don't know about you. I mean, you've told me your plans – sort of – but I don't know if I can...."

"Trust me."

Kirk winced with the unbearableness of it. "Yes."

"Suicide is illogical, except in extremis."

Kirk shot his swiftest, most probing look at Spock. "But you were in extremis when you did what you did, weren't you?"

There was a long pause as Spock met Kirk's gaze. "Yes."

There was a longer pause. "Well," Kirk managed, at last, "at least you're being honest."

"I am – yes."

Something inside Kirk lifted, a little, even though it shouldn't have. "And you aren't anymore? In extremis, I mean...."

"Not at this time."

Whatever had lifted a moment ago clamped back down like a vice. "What happens next time?"

"Next time?"

"Don't stall. What happens next time we're ... apart?"

The colour in Spock's face changed. "You are going back?"

Kirk felt the weight of neutron stars crushing his soul. "Orders."

"My place is with you."

Kirk searched Spock's eyes. "Is that the answer V'ger gave you?"

"As I believe I have already stated, V'ger had no answers. But it did let me open my mind enough to find this." Spock unclasped his own hands and reached delicately, tentatively for Kirk's.

The silence was full and sweet. Kirk found his fingers curling around Spock's. "Are we trying again?"

Two fingers of Spock's other hand kissed Kirk's wrist, tracing the soft underside and heel of thumb, caressing the contours of knuckles and back of hand. "There is only 'try' when uncertainty is present. Does it still exist for thee?"

Kirk touched the Gol-lined skin of Spock's face and shook his head. "I missed you so much," he said, when he could speak.

"I, too, experienced loneliness."

Kirk thumbed the contour of Spock's eyebrow, remembering viscerally how much he'd always loved doing that. "I'm so sorry."

"It was necessary."

Kirk nodded. "I wish it hadn't been."

"So do I."

"Will it be, again?"

"I hope not."

Kirk looked down at three hands tangled together. "I always loved your hands."

"Then should I not be applying them more liberally?" Spock extracted a hand from the tangle and brushed Kirk's face, pulling wetness away.

"I wish you would."

Spock's hand faltered on Kirk's cheek. "Not here, I think."

Kirk followed Spock's eyes towards the table where the crewmen were sitting. "Quite right, Mr. Spock. Though they won't say anything." He nodded and smiled at Ensign Gaines. "See that ensign over there?"

"Mr. Gaines. Yes."

"That's his partner sitting next to him. Crewman Daniels."

"I thought fraternizing was still forbidden between officers and crewmen."

"It is. Which is why nobody is going to say anything. About anyone."

Spock tried to withdraw his hand from Kirk's. "Admiral, your voice—"

"—is rising just enough to get the point across, Commander." Kirk squeezed Spock's hand and rose, letting go. "Time for bed, I think. It's been a long day. Mr. Spock, I think it's time we let these men enjoy some time away from the command crew. Gentlemen...."

In the turbo-lift, Kirk kept a respectable distance of one foot. Any closer, and they'd both be naked and erect when some poor botanist needed to feed the Aldeberan blood lily in the new greenhouse. He only knew they had one because Lieutenant Marks had bled on his boot in the lift when she'd been bitten by it. She'd flushed at his attention, explaining that blood lilies were very sensitive creatures.

He realised that he was smiling when Spock turned a warm, quizzical gaze on him. "Blood lilies," he said.

"Sensitive," said Spock, in a neutral tone.

Kirk imagined Spock stroking its petals without harm, and grinned. "And you're immune, right?"

"Of course. They are allergic to copper."

At that moment, the lift stopped and Kirk pulled his jacket strategically over his groin.

Nobody was there when the door opened.

"We have arrived, Admiral."

"Oh. Right." Kirk suddenly felt a flash of nerves. It had been two years since they'd last been together. The memories came flooding back, along with the pain and bitterness of what had followed.

"Jim?" Spock wavered and shimmied.

Kirk squeezed his eyes shut to clear his head.

"We do not have to engage in sexual intercourse if you do not wish it."

"No ... no, I'm fine, Spock. Just tired." Horny as hell.

"Then isn't that sufficient cause to abstain?"

Kirk shook his head. "Absolutely not!" He strode out the door towards his quarters.

"Jim—"

"I'm fine, Spock! Are you coming, or not?"

"Our quarters are in the opposite direction."

"Oh. Yes, of course they are...."

"Whose quarters would you prefer to use?"

Kirk couldn't help a laugh. "'Your place or mine', eh, Spock?" He turned to see Spock's face filled with a fire that couldn't help but kindle his own. "Whichever one's closer," he said, surprised to hear the growl of it.

"Mine."

Kirk's erection was throbbing before Spock tugged him through the door, and then they were pulling at each other's clothes and grasping for every bit of available skin – finding muscles and curves and bones so familiar that they didn't have to look, and discovering new scars and hardened-softened planes that hadn't been there during that glorious year they'd had as lovers.

Spock's lips were on Kirk's shoulder as Kirk nuzzled Spock's neck and breathed in that lovely, spicy musk that was essence of Spock.

Kirk nibbled Spock's earlobe as he pulled off Spock's tunic and gasped as bare chests came together. "Chest hair! Ohh...." He bent to rub his face against it. "I've missed this!"

"I have never quite understood – Ah, Jim! You still have such beautiful skin...." Spock kissed Kirk's right biceps, and then his chest, sucking a hardening nipple between soft lips.

Kirk nearly came when Spock licked it. He arched against Spock, fumbling at the clasp of Spock's trousers. "MmmSpock! We need to hurry. Not going to last...."

Not unexpectedly, Spock picked Kirk up and deposited him on the bed about a second and a half later, very efficiently divesting him of trousers, underwear and boots in a single move.

Kirk, in turn, did what he could to push Spock's trousers down until his position under his lover – his lover again – prevented further movement. The feeling of Spock writhing out of the rest of his clothes was even more tantalising than Kirk had remembered, and he moaned as the still lithe, even stronger muscles moved against nearly all his erogenous zones.

And then they were naked, and the feel of Spock adjusting their penises to line up exactly the way they'd always loved at frantic moments like this – in a bed, in the shared shower between their quarters, even once mostly clothed in a turbo lift after exposure to a pollen-form aphrodisiac – was enough to have Kirk pressing hard against Spock to try and delay his orgasm. "Spock...!"

"Jim ... I cannot ... AAH! Oh, Jim! Oh...!"

The feel of Spock's seed spurting hard against his cock destroyed any chance Kirk might have had of prolonging the moment. He came, hard, not even recognizing the syllables that came out of his mouth.

They held, frozen in ecstasy for an indeterminate moment before Spock sagged down on top of him and started to move off.

For the first time, Kirk didn't let him. "Don't go." He slid his arms and legs around Spock and held as much of him as he could. "Please stay. Please...."

"Jim." Spock held him just as closely. "I am too heavy...."

"No, you're not. You never were." For the first time since their reunion, Kirk's mouth found Spock's, and they were joined without reserve. "I love you. So much."

Spock stroked Kirk's hair, letting his fingers sink in and through the thick, darkened waves that had always made Kirk self-conscious. He looked like he was about to speak, but then he bent to kiss Kirk deeply, slowly, so tenderly that Kirk nearly whimpered. "I never allowed myself to believe I could find this," said Spock, after a very long, very mutual kiss.

Kirk ran his fingers through Spock's hair. "Neither did I. I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

Spock stroked Kirk's face before kissing him again. "I am sorry, t'hy'la." He brushed the hair from Kirk's forehead. "My most beloved. I will always find you."

Kirk pulled Spock down into another kiss, and then into a close embrace, tucking Spock's face into his shoulder so that Spock couldn't see his tears. "You'd better!" he said, when he could.

Despite all Kirk's best efforts, Spock kissed tears off his cheek before rising from the bed and holding out his hand.

For once, Kirk was glad that he had a fastidious lover who always insisted on cleaning up after sex. Showers were good at washing things away. Perhaps, if he held tightly enough to that thought – and maybe to Spock – his doubt might go down the drain, too.


End file.
